“I’m still wondering,” Bundy said, who repeatedly referred to black people throughout his presser as the “Negro community.”

“They seem to be slaves to the welfare system … but they have an opportunity,” Bundy said.

Regarding the attention his initial comments have since received, Bundy said he won’t “condemn” the media, adding it has led to a conversation.

“It really don’t matter to me if you twist my words up,” Bundy said. “It matters that my heart goes out to the people of this world and they understand what I stand for.”

Earlier on on Thursday, Bundy tried to clarify his comments on race, saying that he was just “wondering” whether black people would be better off as slaves.

“I’m wondering if they’re better off under a government subsidy and their young women are having the abortions and their young men are in jail and their older women and children are sitting out on the cement porch without nothing to do,” the Nevada rancher said in a radio interview on The Peter Schiff Show.

Bundy repeated similar comments at his afternoon press conference again asking whether black people would be happier in the South.

Bundy caused outrage from figures on the right and left Thursday with statements on race first reported by The New York Times.

On Schiff’s show, Bundy continued: “I’m wondering are they better off being slaves in that sense or better off being slaves to the United States government in the sense of the subsidy. I’m wondering. The statement was right.”